Deuteronomy 16:12-17:4

English Standard Version

¹²^(A)You shall remember that you were a slave in Egypt; and you shall be careful to observe these statutes.

The Feast of Booths

¹³^(B)“You shall keep the Feast of Booths seven days, when you have gathered in the produce from your threshing floor and your winepress. ¹⁴^(C)You shall rejoice in your feast, you and your son and your daughter, your male servant and your female servant, the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow who are within your towns. ¹⁵For ^(D)seven days you shall keep the feast to the Lord your God at the place that the Lord will choose, because the Lord your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful.

¹⁶^(E)“Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths. ^(F)They shall not appear before the Lord empty-handed. ¹⁷Every man ^(G)shall give as he is able, ^(H)according to the blessing of the Lord your God that he has given you.

Justice

¹⁸“You shall appoint ^(I)judges and officers in all your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, according to your tribes, and they shall judge the people with righteous judgment. ¹⁹^(J)You shall not pervert justice. ^(K)You shall not show partiality, ^(L)and you shall not accept a bribe, for a bribe blinds the eyes of the wise and subverts the cause of the righteous. ²⁰Justice, and only justice, you shall follow, that you may live and inherit the land that the Lord your God is giving you.

Forbidden Forms of Worship

²¹“You shall not plant any tree as ^(M)an Asherah beside the altar of the Lord your God that you shall make. ²²And you shall not set up a pillar, which the Lord your God hates.

17 ^(N)“You shall not sacrifice to the Lord your God an ox or a sheep in which is a blemish, any defect whatever, for that is an abomination to the Lord your God.

²^(O)“If there is found among you, within any of your towns that the Lord your God is giving you, a man or woman who does what is evil in the sight of the Lord your God, ^(P)in transgressing his covenant, ³and has gone and served other gods and worshiped them, or ^(Q)the sun or the moon or any of the host of heaven, ^(R)which I have forbidden, ⁴and it is told you and you hear of it, then you shall inquire ^(S)diligently, and if it is true and certain that such an abomination has been done in Israel,